Getting to Whistler/Blackcomb

Consider these options: Dallas to Vancouver $640; Dallas to Seattle $360. Multiply those rates by four travelers. Given the cost difference, I chose to book flights into Seattle and drive two extra hours to get to Whistler.

And, in fact, the four-hour drive from Seattle enchanted us. Flakes floated outside our windows like we were travelling in a well-shaken snow-globe. We searched the trees, taller than telephone poles, for deer — or maybe a fox. Blue-ish lumps emerged off-shore. Islands? All that soft, quiet white looked so much cleaner than the dead-foliage beige of Dallas.

After a week of skiing, we grew accustomed to living in a snowglobe and no longer noticed it so much. Our bed times had slouched closer and closer to midnight. On our very last night, my husband Brad announced, “I’m setting the alarm for 3 am.”

“Aren’t we going to watch a movie?” our younger son, Cole asks.

“NO! Go to sleep.”

That next morning, we couldn’t look for deer or misty islands during the dark drive to the Seattle airport. Nor would we have, anyway. Snow was old news and so was the stupid sea. Cripes, the four-hour drive seemed f-o-u-r h-o-u-r -s l-o-n-g . Worst of all, we realized at check-in that our passports were still in our room safe in back at Whistler.

Long drives: captivating going, tedious coming home. – Me

Next time, I will set a price scanner in July for a December trip to Whistler. We will be flying into Vancouver at the best price possible and will balance a savings of our sanity with savings in our wallet.